A Date in the Ruins
I stepped out of the Apocalypse novel. The moment I did, Noh Changhun suddenly stared straight at my face. Then he said,
“W-what!? I didn’t cry!”
“…Huh?”
“W-wait, it’s true!?”
The face reflected in the mirror was clean only around the eyes. Blood was splattered across my cheeks, so of course the pristine skin around my eyes looked suspicious. My face flushed red in an instant.
“Shut up!”
“Will you shut the hell up!? Ugh, I’m leaving first!”
Honestly, I thought about it for a second. What if I cracked this bastard’s skull open with Beopbong? Would he stop then? But no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t do that after he’d even given me a ring. I decided I’d get my revenge later if the chance came up, and picked the next place to shop.
“Let’s buy some winter clothes! For you, I mean.”
“Sure, let’s pick some out. But don’t you need any?”
Noh Changhun stared at my body. Truth was, I didn’t really need winter clothes. When I fought, my body heated up quickly and my temperature rose. Even normally, I didn’t feel the cold much. Even in this pretty chilly weather, I didn’t feel like I couldn’t stand it. Well, I couldn’t go completely naked… but even if I wore something, I’d still have to leave either my arms or legs exposed. Since I was wearing a top when I first arrived, it seemed like as long as I didn’t cover both, it’d be fine.
“Maybe just a hoodie or something?”
“That’s enough?”
“Yeah. I have to expose either my arms or legs anyway, and my body temperature rises on its own when I fight, right?”
“Got it. Then who’s clearing the path?”
“Path?”
Noh Changhun quietly raised his index finger and pointed somewhere. Only then did I realize the men’s clothing store was on a different floor. And that floor was crawling with zombies, which meant we’d have to fight.
But I wasn’t too worried. After all, only one of us needed to fight at this level. I lightly rolled my shoulders and said,
“Eh, I’ll clear it. We’re going up, right?”
“Yeah. Be careful.”
“Just hold the bags properly.”
The elevator was obviously unusable. As for the escalator… the reason we couldn’t use it was plain to see. It was packed solid with green masses, so it’d be better to take the stairs. Those green lumps were even wriggling. I looked around for a suitable emergency stairwell and headed there. There was no hesitation. I carefully opened the door, stepped inside, and swung Beopbong.
“Grrraa…!?”
“Grrraaa…”
“Where do you think you’re going, you bastards!”
The two zombies waiting inside had their heads smashed and collapsed on the spot. There didn’t seem to be any more zombies nearby, so I scanned the area and shoved the corpses into one corner. While I did that, Noh Changhun properly opened the door and kept watch on our surroundings.
“Let’s go up.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, hold on.”
There was a banging sound against the door. At a glance, there were probably a ton of zombies inside. They must have noticed the commotion and gathered here from nearby. Regular zombies weren’t that annoying, but numbers made them a pain. From the sound of it, there were at least five or six. Since there had been a lot of zombies when I looked up earlier, we might end up clearing an entire floor if we weren’t careful.
“This is gonna get annoying.”
“Want me to help?”
“No. You just stay right there, Changhun. I can’t stay completely quiet after receiving a ring from you.”
Luckily the door opened by pushing. It didn’t look damaged either, so I grabbed the handle firmly and rested Beopbong on my shoulder. I counted silently in my head, then shoved the door hard.
“Grrraa…?”
“Grrraaa…!”
“W-what the—!?”
But the sight was far more horrific than I’d imagined. Countless arms reached out past the door. The clumped zombies let out grotesque moans. I quickly turned my head to look at Noh Changhun. He smirked and said,
“No, Changhun… how the hell do I kill those things…?”
I was pretty sure this had appeared once in the novel. A cluster of victims from the initial chaos that couldn’t even be classified as a variant. These lumps were basically living obstacles, so they were often left alone. But we had come here to shop, and there weren’t any other routes we could take. We had to clear this obstacle to move forward, but I couldn’t even guess where to hit them to kill them. That’s why I asked for help, and Noh Changhun answered like it was obvious.
“I mean, if I was going to do that I would’ve done it already. Is that really okay…?”
“Ugh.”
Burning them didn’t exactly feel great. But there was no other choice, so I carefully set them on fire and watched. Thankfully the lump burned away while screaming. After a few minutes, it completely died down. I cautiously peeked outside the door. The sprinklers hadn’t activated, at least…
“The zombies are still there. Changhun, wait here a bit.”
There were quite a lot of regular zombies, but it wasn’t anything too worrying. It was just going to be annoying. I spent the next while sweating as I swung Beopbong around, clearing them out. Once they were all taken care of, things were fine. While I set fire to the piled-up corpses to dispose of them, Noh Changhun put down the bag of clothes and started shopping. It wasn’t really shopping, though. He was just picking out decent clothes that weren’t covered in filth and stuffing them into the bag.
“You done picking?”
“Not yet.”
“Take your time. I’ll handle any zombies that come. Ew, guess I don’t need to.”
Now that I looked, the lump was conveniently blocking the passageway. That meant the zombies couldn’t come down from above or go up from below. In a way, it was lucky. But if you thought about it properly, there was hardly a greater tragedy. It meant most of the people who had been shopping here when the outbreak happened had died. Crushed between people, unable to run. That’s how they died and fused together. Now they were a moaning lump that kept on living.
“…”
If I could, I wanted to burn them all. Even though they were dead, I doubted anyone would want to keep living in that state. But we didn’t have time for that. We couldn’t leave our spot for long when another attack could come at any moment. Besides, Noh Changhun had duties as a second lieutenant. He’d probably have to stand guard at the defense line again soon.
“Anyway, once everything’s over, people will start cleaning up.”
Thinking that made me feel a little better. Once we reached the ending, the zombies would disappear. And if this world continued to exist even after we returned to reality, then everyone would be able to smile.
…It sounded a bit sentimental, but oh well. Everyone has moments like this sometimes.
“I’m done picking. Let’s go.”
“Okay. On the way down, let’s stop by the electronics store.”
Unlike what I’d hoped, they didn’t sell cameras. Still, I grabbed some USB drives and earphones that could be useful, along with a few types of batteries. Once I added those, the bag quickly became stuffed. Noh Changhun smirked and gathered up the luggage. Then, as if something suddenly occurred to him, he looked at me and said,
“…Does it?”
A date, huh. Now that he mentioned it, it really did feel like one. We came together to pick out clothes and even matched rings. If it weren’t for the apocalypse, it would’ve been a pretty nice picture. I feel weird saying it myself, but I’m really pretty and he’s handsome, so we’d normally draw a lot of attention. Too bad the situation meant we only drew the attention of zombies.
“Hey, Changhun.”
“Yeah?”
“If we look through laptops or phones, there’s probably some with movies on them, right?”
“Probably.”
“I’ve always wanted to stay up all night watching movies with a friend. Wanna watch together?”
“Hmm…”
Noh Changhun thought for a moment. Yeah, it was worth thinking about. Finding a phone with movies on it wouldn’t be easy, and keeping it running all night wouldn’t be either. We couldn’t waste precious electricity on something like that. So if he said no, I could understand.
…But it would be really nice if he said yes.
“Really!?”
“Hmph, I knew it’d be something like that. I’m a pretty useful worker, after all.”
“Um…”
I usually had no idea what movie to pick in situations like this. That was because I hardly ever watched movies. Going all the way to the theater was annoying, and there weren’t any good ones anyway. To me, movies weren’t for watching—they were for arguing. I found it entertaining to toss one out when I was bored and watch the chaos that followed. In the end, there was only one choice.
“Wanna… watch a horror movie…?”
I’m a scaredy-cat, but if it’s with him, it’ll be okay.